Senate

by Jeremy Leaming

A proposed constitutional amendment to mandate a balanced budget has already failed in the House, but senators must also vote on a version before the end of the year as required by the debt-ceiling deal reached in the summer.

Beginning to consider a balanced budget measure, the Senate Judiciary’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights, earlier this week, heard from detractors and supporters of the idea that has been embraced by a slew of states and mulled in Congress for more than a decade. A measure similar to the one the House defeated last month was rejected by Congress in 1995.

Alan B. Morrison, an associate dean of George Washington University Law School for Public Interest and Public Service Law, and a distinguished law professor, told the Subcommittee the balanced budget amendment was a “bad idea,” and urged the Senate to “vote it down and get back to the real work of controlling our deficits.”

Morrison, who helped found Public Citizen Litigation, where he was involved in separation of powers cases, many of which reached the Supreme Court, said, in part, that the proposed amendments would likely shove courts into deciding budgetary matters.

He told senators that “thrusting the courts into budget battles is to me, and I believe to most others who have given the matter any serious thought, a terrible idea. At the very least, it is very strong medicine. But if that is what the sponsors think is needed, they should have the courage to say so. On the other hand, if the cure of judicial review is seen as worse than the ills of an unbalanced budget, Congress should make that clear in the amendment itself. If that option is taken, then the amendment will probably end up being little more than empty rhetoric, to be followed when it is convenient, and ignored when it is not. Meanwhile, serious efforts to bring our spending more in line with our revenues will be put on the back burner while Congress relies on the hope that the balanced budget amendment will do its job.”

Morrison’s entire testimony is available here. Video of the hearing is available on the Subcommittee’s website.

The Huffington Post's Sam Stein described the agreement as "a set of relatively small changes in to the upper chamber's rules, including an informal pact to reduce the number of filibusters in exchange for allowing more amendments from the minority party."

According to The Washington Post the agreement "left intact the essential concept of the minority's right to block some legislation by requiring a 60-vote threshold through a threatened filibuster."

The newspaper reported that the leaders did agree "to repeal the decades-old stalling tactics of secret holds, in which an anonymous senator could slow action on a bill, and the ability to force amendments to be read in their entirety on the floor."

Stein concluded that the agreement "falls well short of what rules-reform advocates had sought." Stein notes the more far-reaching reforms proposed by Sens. Tom Harkin (pictured), Tom Udall, and Jeff Merkley. Some of those reforms included requiring a certain number of senators to be present on the floor in order to sustain a filibuster.

The New York Times in a recent editorial called on the Senate Democrats to adopt reforms advanced by those senators, saying the Senate had a "rare opportunity to reduce the abuse of the filibuster and increase the chances that the people's work actually gets done. Instead, they are close to an agreement on a watered-down package of changes that will have only a modest effect on the chamber's gridlock."

The editorial continued:

A group of Democratic senators - led by Tom Udall of New Mexico and Jeff Merkley of Oregon - came up with a reasonable proposal to reduce this practice [requiring a 60 votes for most Senate action] while preserving the minority's right to wage a fight. It would require 10 senators to start a filibuster and then speak continuously on the floor to keep it going. If an issue is important enough to block, then senators should be willing to work for it and explain themselves to the public.

An array of public-interest groups had also urged the Senate to adopt the reforms advanced by Sens. Harkin, Udall and Merkley.

ACS Executive Director Caroline Fredrickson noted the increasing delays in confirming judicial selections in urging the Senate to pass comprehensive rules reform.

"Our nation cannot afford the continuing delay and obstruction of votes on judges and other nominees critical to running our government that has plagued the Senate," Fredrickson said in a statement issued by Fix The Senate Now. "The token number of confirmations offered at the end of the recent lame duck session is less an accomplishment than evidence of how an effective government could be run. As the Chief Justice of the United States, and numerous other judges and public officials have noted, our nation depends on these positions being filled. If it requires Senate rules reform to help accomplish this and put an end to the shameless filibuster threats and anonymous holds that impede our government, then the Senate must take that on."

Communications Workers of America (CWA), in Jan. 26 statement, said the rules were abused during the 111th Senate. CWA continued, "Reforms that would help working men and women were never allowed to come up for debate on the Senate floor. The Employee Free Choice Act, the Fair Play Act, the Dream Act, and comprehensive climate legislation, among other measures, would have made real improvements in the lives of American families, but were never discussed by the Senate. There were more than 400 bills that passed the House of Representatives that never had a hearing on the Senate floor."